Masahiro Nakai, one of Japan’s most prominent pop stars and television hosts, announced his retirement on Thursday following allegations of sexual misconduct.
This marks yet another controversy shaking Japan’s entertainment industry.
The 52-year-old former member of SMAP, a legendary boy band under the now-defunct talent agency Johnny & Associates, has faced scrutiny in light of the agency’s dark history.
In 2023, Johnny & Associates admitted that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, had sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men over decades.
Adding to the controversy, recent reports revealed that Nakai had paid a lump sum of 90 million yen ($570,000) to an unnamed woman. While the specifics of the payment remain unclear, it has further fueled speculation surrounding his sudden decision to step away from the limelight.
SMAP, a cultural phenomenon in Asia during its nearly three-decade run, solidified Nakai’s fame before the group’s disbandment in 2016. In his post-SMAP career, Nakai became a household name as a successful television host.
This followed what tabloid magazine Shukan Bunshun called a “sexual act against her will” in 2023.
This month, Fuji Television suspended a weekly show hosted by Nakai, while other major networks also dropped the presenter.
On Thursday Nakai released a statement saying he was stepping back from show business altogether.
“I will continue to face up to all problems sincerely and respond in a wholehearted manner. I alone am responsible for everything,” Nakai said.
“I sincerely apologise” to the woman, he wrote, before concluding: “thank you for these past 37 years. Good bye”.
Nakai issued a statement published in local media earlier this month saying some of what had been reported was “different from the facts”.
His retirement stunned Japan, with three other former SMAP members telling local media they were “speechless”.
“I was shocked at the news, but I guess this (his retirement) is inevitable, from what we have seen in media,” said Naoko Mizui, 51, a shopper in Tokyo.
“I feel it would be difficult for him to continue working in the entertainment industry. It is sad, but we have to accept it,” she told AFP.
Fellow shopper Kaoru Kuno, 54, said she was “sad” but added: “As a woman, I feel bad. I have to say he treated women without respect.”
Fuji Television has also come under fire over its handling of the affair, with dozens of top brands pulling adverts from the broadcaster.
Shukan Bunshun and other outlets have alleged a Fuji TV executive was involved in organising Nakai’s meeting with the woman.
Fuji TV has denied those claims but said last week it was probing the matter after a US activist investor said it was “outraged” by the company’s lack of transparency.
The broadcaster’s parent company Fuji Media Holdings decided Thursday to establish a third-party enquiry as per the Japanese bar association’s guidelines.
The announcement came after it convened an emergency board meeting where participants voiced “harsh criticism” over the broadcaster’s handling of the matter, president Osamu Kanemitsu told reporters.
The case also shone the spotlight on other TV channels, with local media reporting that dinners and drinking parties involving celebrities and young women were common practice.
Other TV channels including Nippon TV have announced their own investigations into whether similar events between celebrities and women had been organised.
The incident will “hopefully serve as an opportunity for TV stations to rethink how they make shows”, Takahiko Kageyama, a media studies professor at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts, told AFP.
“If women were being treated not as equal human beings but as some kind of lubricant to facilitate the making of TV programmes, it’s time they stopped this kind of practice,” he said.
Music mogul Kitagawa, who died aged 87 in 2019, had for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men seeking stardom, his agency finally acknowledged in 2023.
Allegations about him swirled for decades but it was not until that year that they ignited calls for compensation following a BBC documentary and denunciations by victims.
Japan’s showbiz industry was then rocked by another bombshell sexual assault scandal involving Hitoshi Matsumoto, one of the country’s most popular comedians.
In November, Matsumoto said he was withdrawing a libel case against the Shukan Bunshun magazine that published the allegations, including that he forced oral sex on one woman, and forcibly kissed another.